Westfield Hospital promises patients visiting its emergency room that they will be seen in 15 minutes.That is one of the selling points of this for-profit hospital, which became the first of its kind in the Lehigh Valley when it opened in June.

"We felt there's definitely a need for folks who are sitting in the emergency room for hours," said Dr. Yasin Khan, the hospital's founder.

Located in South Whitehall Township, a short distance from the Pennsylvania Turnpike interchange, the 26-bed, 45,000-square-foot general acute-care hospital also boasts hotel-like rooms with flat-screen televisions, Internet access and mahogany furniture. The rooms are large enough for more than one family member to stay with a patient, hospital officials said.

"The whole purpose is to provide a serene, aesthetically pleasing environment to the patient," director of nursing Donna Smull said.

Hospital staff also make special efforts to accommodate their patients, even for small matters, she said. Staff members once made a grilled cheese sandwich to satisfy a patient's craving for one, she said.

The hospital has imaging equipment, a CT scanner, ultrasound facilities, as well as equipment for general radiology and nuclear medicine.

It treats ailments such as pneumonia, chest pains and infections, and offers eye, ear, nose and throat surgery, said Harry Brockus, chief operating officer. It also handles general operations such as hernia repairs, appendectomies and gall bladder surgery, as well as plastic and vascular surgery, he said.

The hospital does not provide neurosurgery, open heart surgery or oncology treatment.

Though not a trauma center, it has a complete emergency room, he said. Patients who need care the hospital cannot provide are transferred to other hospitals, he said.

Insurance coverage at Westfield is handled as it would be at any other hospital, Khan said.

Khan said staff experienced in emergency room care enable the hospital to fulfill its promise of seeing emergency room visitors within 15 minutes.

Hospital personnel also can save time by registering patients while they are being treated, he said.

Molly Sebastian, vice president of patient care services for Lehigh Valley Hospital, believes her system's emergency rooms are just as expeditious.

Any patients visiting them are evaluated by a triage nurse right away, she said. The ones who need immediate attention receive it, she said. Others "might wait depending on what's happening in the overall unit," she said.

A pain specialist who is board-certified in anesthesiology and pain management, Khan has served as director of acute pain services at Albert Einstein Medical Center's Northern Division in Philadelphia and as medical director of pain management at LVH.

Westfield is in a new building on 9 acres of land Khan owns. It is behind another building in which he opened a pain management practice in 1991 and a same-day surgical center in 1999, he said.

The hospital is operated through a limited partnership of which Khan is the only general partner. He declined to provide details about his partners, except to say that about 90 percent of them are local physicians.

Khan, who visited hospitals similar to his in Texas and Oklahoma before opening Westfield, believes hospitals like his will find their niche.

"People are moving farther and farther from the center of town where the big institutions are," he said. "This type of facility can fit into smaller communities."

Still, they will not completely replace larger hospitals, observers said.

"I don't think you can get away from the big medical centers completely because that's where your traumas are supposed to go," said Dr. Howard Noels, an emergency room physician at Westfield who has worked at hospitals in New York City and New Jersey, and at Easton Hospital.

How much, or even if, Westfield competes with other hospitals is unclear. It could simply be helping the region's healthcare providers meet a growing demand for services.

"Those hospitals have appeal for sure, and there must be enough patients to go around, because we're not seeing a decrease," Sebastian said.

Khan said his venture is growing.

The number of patients visiting the emergency room increased from 100 to about 500 a month between August and December, he said.

Staff is increasing as well.

About 60 doctors now perform services at the hospital, a number that grows by about 10-13 each month, he said. As for nurses, the hospital started out with 20 and now has 45, hospital officials said.

The hospital's 1-to-5 nurse-to-patient ratio is in line with other hospitals.

Khan said he expects to break even by the end of the year and start turning a profit afterward.

"In the big scheme of things, we may not make a lot of money," he said. "But I think it's more of a satisfaction, more of a self-control, more of having some say in how you take care of your patients."